The present invention relates to user access systems and service provider host systems for data and service networks, particularly but not exclusively for use with the Internet/World Wide Web, and to communications between users when on-line.
Recent years have seen a rapid increase in the amount of data available to a user via data network coupling to a remote server, with cheap browser packages for home personal computer (PC) users continuing to increase the number of people on-line. A number of examples of network access and server systems, whether for the Internet or on a smaller local area network (LAN), are described in the introduction to EP-A-0 732 660 (Kambayashi et al/Toshiba). In the systems described, a number of user-operated xe2x80x9cclient systemsxe2x80x9d (for example home users) are enabled to access, via network, data stored by a server. As noted in EP-A-0 732 660, person to person communications systems such as telephone, electronic mail (e-mail), network talk and Internet chat spaces are well known, but these have traditionally existed separately from networked access systems with delays being introduced as the user switches between them as required. In order to reduce these delays, the system of EP-A-0 732 660 provides the data holding server with a store of user data (e.g. photograph, telephone number and e-mail address) which data is matched to a user logging on via a client station of the system. As a user navigates a particular area of the data held by the server, the server makes available to them some of the personal data of other users currently navigating the same area, such as respective screen icons comprising the other users photographs. By selecting one of these icons, the user has a communications channel (whether telephone, e-mail etc.) automatically set up with the identified user without having to break off navigation for any great length of time.
Whilst the above-described system reduces discontinuities in establishing communications whilst navigating stored data, the present applicants have recognised the need for a means to handle the converse problem, namely the avoidance of breaks in an established communications session to undertake stored data navigation.
It is therefore an object of the present invention to provide a means by which a user may have made available to him/her relevant information to accompany a communications session with another user without requiring conspicuous action on the part of either user and without unnecessary interruption of the communications session.
In accordance with a first aspect of the present invention there is provided a message parsing apparatus for use in a network communications system, said apparatus comprising: an input to receive text messages sent from a first communications device of the system to another; a parser subsystem coupled to receive said text messages, and including processing means arranged to process the received text in accordance with a predetermined processing strategy to identify one or more keywords therein; and a search subsystem coupled with the parser subsystem and arranged to receive the or each selected keyword, to selectively transmit one or more such keywords via said network to a search engine coupled with the network, to receive results from the search engine, and to output them to a user of the system. By the use of the parser subsystem to identify keywords during, for example, a web chat-space communications session, ancillary information of interest and/or relevance to one or more of the users is called up and may be made available automatically without requiring specific actions of the user, such as having to temporarily disrupt communications with another user in order to carry out a data search.
The parser subsystem suitably further comprises a first memory into which the words of a received text message may be loaded, each with a respective initial value, which values may then be subsequently modified during processing by the processing means, with the parser subsystem further being configured, at the conclusion of processing, to identify those stored words having an associated value exceeding a predetermined threshold and output said words as keywords to said search subsystem. The parser subsystem is preferably arranged to accumulate in such a storage device keywords from successive messages, and may be arranged to reduce the associated value of all stored keywords prior to, or whilst, identifying keywords and their respective associated values in a newly received message.
The search subsystem is suitably configured to select, for transmission to the search engine, those stored keywords meeting a selection criteria including at least partially the respective associated values. The first memory is suitably a non-volatile storage device and, at the start of a message communication session, the associated values for any stored keywords from a previous session may be halved, such that they are unlikely to be searched if the general topic of the communications session differs from that of the previous session, but will quickly gain sufficient value to trigger a search if the topics are the same.
The apparatus may further comprise user feedback means coupled to supply a feedback signal to said parser subsystem indicative of user response to received and output results from the search engine, with the parser subsystem being configured to adjust the stored keyword associated values in dependence on said feedback signal. Alternatively, this feedback means may select text strings from the received results and parse these in the same manner as user text messages to identify useful further keywords related to those already searched.
The present invention also provides a data network browser and a network server configured as a chat space provider, each incorporating the above described message parsing apparatus. Further features of these devices are described hereinafter and recited in the attached claims to which reference should now be made and whose disclosure is incorporated herein by reference.